118 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. — [20] 
pensable to the proper development of our coast; and this influence 
will be heightened by concentrating the herring industry in a compara- 
tively small number of favorably located ports, where churches and 
schools would give to the young growing up during the great fishing 
period an education which would fit them to successfully grapple with 
the difficulties which will doubtless confront them at the close of the 
herring period. The school of navigation at Stromstad, a place which 
has never played an important part in the history of our herring fish- 
eries, should be moved to a more central location—central not only with 
regard to its geographical location on our coast, but also with regard to 
the herring fisheries. The high school for farmers at Tyft, founded and 
’ richly endowed by the late mayor of Lund, Mr. L. Billstrém, and which 
is located near to one of the principal places where herring fisheries are 
carried on, might easily arrange its course of instruction in such a man- 
ner as to give to our coast population a suitable education beyond that 
which they receive in the elementary and intermediate schools. The 
establishment of technical schools where the young people could be in- 
structed in various trades should also be encouraged. 
Savings banks and loan institutions, where the fishermen could de- 
posit their savings, and where they could borrow the necessary money 
for fitting out boats and buying apparatus, would also prove highly 
beneficial, as they would tend to free the fishermen from the cruel 
clutches of usurers. The founding of life insurance and mutual benefit 
associations among our coast population would aid in avoiding much 
trouble, and would make the future brighter and more promising to our 
fishermen. In order that such institutions may do the greatest possi- 
ble good, it would be well for the government to publish in pamphlet 
form an account of their working in other countries. 
One of the principal causes of the misfortunes which followed the 
close of our last great herring period, must be found in the circum- 
stance that the persons engaged in the herring fisheries made these fish- 
eries the only and exclusive source of their living; and when the herring 
left our coast, and our fishermen could not follow them, the natural 
consequence was great and general suffering among the coast popula- 
tion. One of the first duties of the hour is, therefore, to prevent the re- 
currence of such misfortunes at the end of the present herring period, 
and in the above various hints have been given as to the best way in 
which this should be done. We must once more point out in this con- 
nection the great importance of the railroads which have been proposed, 
as thereby an undoubted impetus will be given to the deep sea fisheries, 
whose continuance at all times, at least on the middle and northern 
coast, is sufficiently guaranteed. If by a judicious concentration of the 
herring industry new towns are established on the coast, many other 
industries will spring up, through which the fishermen can earn a liv- 
ing during that part of the year when the herring are away from the 
coast, and which at the close of a herring period will in some manner 
